Duke of Gloucester opens
Cancer Care Centre in Margate
04 October 2007
The Duke of Gloucester today opened the new Viking Day Unit a £1.1m cancer care centre at QEQM Hospital in Margate, the product of 12 years of fundraising on the part of staff and patients, exceeding NHS best practice guidelines, a showcase for sustainable design in healthcare.
Hundreds of residents in Kent have helped raise the money needed to build the unit following the launch of a fundraising appeal in 1995. The new facility will greatly improve the services available to the local population, providing services such as a new chemotherapy suite and more sophisticated drugs, making it one of the most advanced chemotherapy day units in the south-east.
The Duke of Gloucester described the building as “a special building for a special problem” and commented that “as a retired architect myself, I am heartened to see that architecture is still making such a positive contribution”.
“It’s been a great pleasure to help deliver a project that will mean so much to the community that paid for it. This new cancer care unit means improvements in care for people living with cancer and an improved working environment for the staff at the centre. To have all this work recognised by the Duke of Gloucester – himself an accomplished architect – is a great honour.”
Richard Ager, Director, Nightingale Associates
Designed by Nightingale Associates the building sports a plan arrangement that maximises the number of rooms with natural light and ventilation, the Viking Day Unit keeps energy consumption reduced. The building also uses large internal areas of exposed dense materials, which retain heat for longer in winter and – when coordinated with passive night time ventilation – remain cooler during the summer.
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